Word: nigerias
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...Nigeria: Wretched Excess Tom Pullo looks like a fighter. His chest is a barrel, his forearms are all muscle. Seeing him at breakfast at the Agura Hotel in Nigeria's capital, Abuja, a place favored by foreign oil executives, you might take him for a security guard protecting his charges. But Pullo works for the other side. "We are not taking hostages because of money," he says. "We are taking hostages to draw world attention to our plight." Nigeria is the oil giant of Africa. It is also, as an American diplomat in the region says, "one big problem...
...Nigeria pumped its first barrel in the 1950s and has since set records for corruption. The government's own anticorruption watchdog, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, estimates that between independence in 1960 and 1999, the country's rulers stole $400 billion in oil revenues - equal to all the foreign aid to Africa during the same period. And while a small élite became rich, its members fought one another for the spoils. In 47 years, Nigeria has suffered a civil war that killed a million people, 30 years of military rule and six coups. Meanwhile, two-thirds...
...surprisingly, disenchantment with the nation's political leaders runs deep. Nigeria has been a nominal democracy since 1999. But international monitors have questioned the fairness of the April 21 elections in which outgoing President Olusegun Obasanjo was replaced by his favored candidate Umaru Yar'Adua, a previously obscure state Governor. "These elections have not lived up to the hopes and expectations of the Nigerian people, and the process cannot be considered to have been credible," said Max van den Berg, chief E.U. observer, after the vote. When Yar'Adua was sworn in as President last Tuesday, he vowed to improve...
...Containing the people's anger at Nigeria's rulers and their unwillingness to share the wealth isn't easy, though. The Delta is now home to several antigovernment, anti-oil-industry militia groups fighting for a cut of the revenues. The biggest and most organized is the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (mend), which counts several hundred militants in its ranks. As Pullo, who titles himself General Officer Commanding, mend Camp Five, says: "God has given us everything in the Delta: water, fish, oil. And yet we are suffering. That is our cross." mend recently issued...
...violence has reverberations far beyond Nigeria. Oil rose above $50 a barrel for the first time when in 2004 a Nigerian Muslim militant threatened to attack the industry, while fears that the April 2007 elections would trigger renewed violence were a factor in driving the price above $66 in late May. Yergin, of Cambridge Energy Reasearch Associates, warns: "As West Africa becomes increasingly important, consumers in the U.S., Europe and Asia will discover that their own energy security depends in part on political and economic stability in West Africa." American warships already patrol off West Africa, and U.S. energy...